Judaism is a revealed religion that forbids
any addition to or modification of the initial revelation given
directly by God to certain chosen emissaries such as Moses and
Solomon. The Torah cannot be altered or amended, but certain
Jewish mystics believed that they could read the 22 letters of
the Hebrew alphabet like a secret code and thus access further
revelations from the Deity. The esoteric knowledge they developed
was preserved in a complex system called the Cabala. (Modern
version of the Cabalistic Tree of Life. From Kabbalah by
Zev ben Shimon Halevi, Thames & Hudson, 1992)

A vast and obscure system of mystical teachings consisting of a
model of creation (the Tree of Life) and a complex
language of symbols intended for developing access to God or the
supreme Godhead, called Ain Soph Aur, Supreme and
Single Golden Wisdom Light.

The origins of the Cabala are as obscure as some of its teachings.
Its current form was defined by Moses de Leon in the 13th century,
but it certainly derives from a long hidden tradition among the
ancient Hebrews. Study of the Cabala and arduous exertion in the
practices it involves are said to lead to a direct, ever-new and
ever-changing revelation of God. In this sense, Cabala is a heretic
system opposed to the fundamentalist belief that God was contacted
at certain times in the past by certain chosen emissaries, such
as Moses, to whom was given a primordial revelation of truth that
cannot be changed or improved.

Christos From the Greek
verb khriein, "to anoint." Literally, "the
anointed." Direct equivalent to the Hebrew messiah,
a title used for the anointed kings in ancient Jewish religion,
and retained in specific reference to the Messiah, the
awaited savior, the spiritual hero and judge.

When shortened to Christ, this is certainly
the most problematic and misleading term in world religion. Discerning
the Gnostic Christos from the Christian Christ is one of the
essential tasks we face in recovering the true message of
Pagan Mysteries.

The identification
of Jesus (human) as "the Christ" (superhuman, divine, "Only-Begotten
Son of God) was made by Saint Paul around 75 CE, but the divinity
of Jesus Christ
was
not
established
as
a doctrinal
matter until the Nicean Council of 325 CE. At that event, the
Emperor Constantine forced the vote so that he could meld his
political power with
the mystique of a fast-growing new religion, later to be known
Christianity. Belief in the divinity of Jesus may be an inspiring
and comforting thing to many people, but to the faux-convert
Constantine it was savvy political move, a way to underwrite
Roman law by divine authority. The Roman Catholic
alliance of fascism with salvationist in the Divine Redeemer
was to exercise a death-grip on
the
world
for
many centuries, and still does, although that grip is failing.

Before Constantine, certain Emperoros had declared themselves
divine. They were viewed as arrogant fools by the general
public, and rejected
as charlatans by Gnostics and others among the Pagan intelligentsia. The claim to divinity of the emperors (the assumption of
"divine afflatus," as it was called) was an attempt by the
decadent
tryants of the failing empire to steal the prestige associated
with the telestai, the initiates in the Mysteries;
and, to a certain extent, to imitate Alexander the Great, who
was the first to attempt this ploy. Constantine was extremely
clever in seeing that he could not declare himself
divine, but then he didn't have to, because there was a better
option: instead of declaring himself a god, he aligned himself
with the
Christos, the god-man.

The decline of the Mystery Schools after the Augustan
Era [29 BCE - 14 CE] was in part due to a massive popular demand
for a kind of personal salvation that the Mysteries (being
a transpersonal path) did not offer. This demand, in turn,
was part of a general movement that arose at the turn of the
Age, from Aries to Pisces, around 150 BCE. The Greek astronomer
is credited with discovering precession around that time, but
in fact, he only disclosed publicly what had been known to
initiates for centuries. This disclosure had catastrophic results,
because it produced in the masses a false sense of empowerment.
The conviction that everyone had a personal fate that could
be changed at will was a popular assumption of the time, due
to a widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of precession
(change in the stars: change of fate). The massive demand for
a change of personal fate led to a "New Age" movement, baptism
cults, a rage for conversion. The Mysteries were unable to
respond to the rampant narcissism of the moment...

One huge factor in this upsurge of narcissism (self-concern)
was the emergence in the collective unconscious of a numinous
figure or
role
model for humanity. Eventually, the image of the god-man Jesus
Christ was formulated to meet this need, but it did not really
satisfy it. It is an inauthentic solution to the human
need for a generic sense of humanity, a species identity. Nevertheless,
the solution persisted, and, having become ingrown to
human dignity, now presents an enormous obstacle to defining
and realizing our generic sense of humanity.

In strict usage, the Gnostic Christos ought not to be equated
with the Pauline Christ, the Incarnation, or the Joannine Christ,
the
Word Made
Flesh.

The confusion of the Gnostic Aeon Christos
with the Christ of doctrinal Christianity is one of the
greatest obstacles to a clear understanding of
Gnostic cosmology
and psycho-mythology.

The Aeon Christos who figures in the Gaia Mythos is not
the same as Christ in Pauline-Joannine theology. It is completely
wrong
to attribute the qualities and powers of "Jesus the Christ" to
that Aeon, that Pleromic entity. It is also incorrect to suppose
that the true
and original
teachings of Christianity were Gnostic, and were transmitted
by initiates who knew the true identity of the Aeon Christos,
but then these teachings came to be twisted and muddled by lesser
minds who siezed upon
the illuminist message for personal and political gain. The doctrines
concerning Christ, as constrasted to the illuminist
message about Christos, were perverse from the outset. Christian
doctrines
of salvation and divine intervention cannot be salvaged by the
argument that they contain the germ of true illuminist teachings.
Not should they be, in my opinion.

Throughout this site Christos will be used in rigorous and deliberate
distinction from Christ. Radical Gnostic teaching denies that
Christ is a superhuman agent, a redeemer sent by the Father God,
once and once only. It denies the Incarnation, and challenges the
claim that any human or superhuman being can represent humanity.
No entity has that privilege. Gnostics taught the recognition of
the Anthropos, primal precreated humanity, not Christ
in the conventional sense. And Christ does not represent the Anthropos.
Humanity as a species represents the Anthropos, but no single entity
represents humanity.

Christos in the Pauline cult was derived from the Messiah of
Zaddikim ideology: it is
a superhuman standard, associated with a deviant and inauthentic
model of human potential. The sectarian ideal of Tzaddik implies
a
formula of
absolute
righteousness that cannot
be judged
by
human
standards.
The particular spin of Tzaddik
is the demand that humans be held to a superhuman criterion, a
model of perfection that originates beyond life on Earth.
Since it is impossible to meet this standard, the destruction
of humankind is required,
yet those who have been faithful to Tzaddik, although falling
short of it, will be supernaturally restored to life in an afterworld
provided
by the Father God.

The diabolical logic of the Qumranic sectarians was carried
over intact into Christianity, and the model of supernatural
perfection transferred
to the figure of Jesus Christ. Today devout Christians believe
that JC presents an unattainable ideal — he was, after
all, divine before he
was human — but in the very act of striving for the impossible
we better ourselves as human beings. The imitatio Christi is
considered to be a
perfectly logical ideal, and, because the operative belief here
involves a superhuman being, the ideal has a potent preclusive
effect: considering
how we might live up to an impossible model, we tend to ignore
and discount models that show us what is really possible
for our species. In other
words the superhuman ideal, although it seems to elevate our
sense of human potential, actualy impedes our ability
to
self-actualize (in Maslovian terms). It cripples
our
evolutionary
development,
even
as
if seems to inspire
us to the highest levels of moral and spiritual attainment.

Gnostics recognized that the superhuman ideal of Tzaddik, transferred
into the figure of the Divine Redeemer, actually works against humanity's
efforts at self-actualization. This erroneous spiritual ideal defeats
our true spiritual potential, our capacity to develop the wisdom endowment
of nous, divine intelligence. Gnostics attributed this thwarting
affect to the scheming of the Archons who insinuate a false ideal in
our minds, thus obscuring our innate sense of the true potential of our
species.

In the Sophia Mythos, Christos is the Aeon of the Pleroma often
coupled with Sophia. In one version of the myth, Christos and
Sophia are paired in the Pleroma, making a syzygy, a divine dyad.
They are said to emanate the Anthropos, the template for
humanity. Hence they are a version of the divine parents (twinned).
My retelling of Gnostic cosmology in the Gaia Mythos uses
this motif.

In a further development of the Mythos, Sophia is said to have
been unable to manage the rampant life-forms that emerged and
swarmed over her body once she metamorphosed into the living
planet, Earth. Looking on from the galactic rore, the Pleromic
gods responded by sending the Aeon Christos into the chaotic
matrix
of the biosphere.
The paraphrase of this episode found in Irenaeus says that Christos
"imparted a figure" to Sophia, thus allowing her to bring the
rampant species into order. Today we would say that Christos
"configured" for Sophia the instinctive intelligence of the myriad
species, so that they could become self-sufficient, each type
of animal life following its own innate biological program.

The intervention of the Aeon Christos had effects for the entire
biosphere, and affected the human species in a particular way
as well. See Mijotes.

civilization From Middle Latin, civis, a
person inhabiting the city. Hence  to civilize means
to develop cities and live in cities, although it has come to
mean something considerably more than that: namely, to endow
people
with moral principles and inculcate forms of behavior superior
to those presumed of savages or uncivilized people. (In Origins
under Themes I suggested that civilization
is just a fancy name for citification.)

Arguments about how civilization arose are as varied as those about
its value, although the latter are apparently more recent. Plato
assumed a high value for civilization, epitomized for him in the
legend of Atlantis and represented in his time by the effete, male-only
intellectual milieu of Athens.

Many beliefs are attached to the question of how civilization originated.
Among conventionally minded historians it is widely believed that
the first civilizations arose in the Middle East and Egypt around
4500 BCE, but Marija Gimbutas, Riane Eisler, Stan Gooch, James
Mellart and other, more radically minded historians have presented
evidence to support the belief that civilized societies, rather
than full-blown urban centers, date from as much as three thousand
years earlier.

Beliefs about how civilization began are hotly debated, and equally
so, of late, are beliefs about its value. The debate splits drastically
into pro and con: those who believe that civilization is the greatest
achievement of the human species, and those who believe it is a
grave pathological deviation. One of the leading voices among the
latter group is Stanley Diamond. In In Search of the Primitive:
A Critique of Civilization, he offered this view:

The crisis in the Western world and its imperial hinterlands,
which is also the crisis of humanity, cannot be confined to social,
economic
or technological problems; it inheres in our definition,
our very understanding of man. We live in what we pridefully
call civilization, but our laws and machines have taken on a
life of
their own; they stand against our spiritual and physical survival.

(Cited in Jensen, L, 268)

Speaking rather more bluntly, naturalist and author John A. Livingston
says: Civilization cripples the mind and cripples the heart
by offering humanistic ideology in place of our evolved naturalness
or wildness. (Ibid., p. 56) Both Diamond and Livingston
express the belief that civilization is harmful to the essential
nature
of our species, not to mention other species, animal and plant,
which homo sapiens must consume to the point of extinction
in order to sustain its civilized way of life.

In his Laws, Plato advised the exclusion of poets from the
ideal society. This is a crucial clue to civilization because it
implies that the poetic-visionary mode of knowledge (represented
by the mythic image of Tree and Well) must be excluded if a high
degree of social organization is to be achieved.

Yet it can also be argued that poetic-visionary knowledge is what
really sustains, enlivens and renews human culture through the
course of time.

The evidence from native-mind cultures that have survived for thousands
of years, such as the Australian Aborigines, shows unequivocally
that long-term survival in tribal society depends upon the continuity
of shamanic tradition.

The shaman (who may be a woman or a man) is the poet and seer who
preserves and renews the wisdom of the species. The suggestion
that such wisdom must be excluded for civilization to arise raises
some troubling reflections.

Example: political beliefs in the Arab world are often associated
with the theocratic imperative of Islam and the imposition of shariya,
Islamic law. Addressing the world press, leaders of the Taliban
state unequivocally that there is no division between religion
and politics in the Islamic state. The combination of religion
and politics makes for a heady mix of compound belief. This mix
is already devastating, but when you add to it racial and sexual
scripts coded with other beliefs you have compound belief in a
dense and nefarious amalgamation. In compound belief each element
reinforces the other, making this mode of believing enormously
difficult to refute.

Second example: The "troubles" that have plagued Northern
Ireland for close to 40 years are largely incomprehensible to the
outside world, and not easily understood even by those who have
grown up with them. Historical, racial, religious, political and
familial beliefs combine in a dense knot of compond beliefs. The
composition can vary from one neighborhood to the next, and all
variations are practically impenetrable to reasoned inquiry. The
popular label for this dangerous mix is "sectarian." From
Ireland to Iran to Indonesia, violence driven by belief-based
sectarian hatred fuels social conflict and turns community living
into a
nightmare.

Sectarian hatred is often based on compound beliefs that cannot
be renounced by those who hold them, mainly due to the fear of
jeopardising some precious component of the personality (say,
racial identity, or religious piety, or political affiliation).
Compound
beliefs thrive on complexity. In Northern Irelaand the grip of
compound belief is so intense that it has given rise to a joke, "If
youre not confused, you dont know whats happening." This
joke expresses the deep exasperation of people who realize tragically
that they cannot see beyond the enmeshment of the compound beliefs
that drive them.

concerns Ultimate considerations
based on the four relations that pertain between the God, Nature
and Humanity.

All religious ideas and doctrines, all metaphysical and theological
concepts, all beliefs in the category of spirituality and ethics,
are variations of four ultimate concerns about the relations pertaining
between three entities:

1, Concern for the relation of Humanity to Nature.

2, Concern for the relation of God to Nature.

3, Concern for the relation of Humanity to God.

4, Concern for the relation of Humanity to itself.

These relations invoke ultimate concern because they frame and
determine all lesser issues that present deep and perennial anxiety
for human existence. Whenever we say “I am concerned,” it
generally means there is something important at stake. With the
ultimate concerns, ultimate matters are at stake. To enter deeply
into what it means to be human is to be concerned about these
four relations, as if life itself depended upon them, and in
the case
of 1, it does. If we do not give careful attention to defining
and nurturing these concerns, human experience falls apart at
the seams.

Life in the natural world depends inarguably on concern 1, but
the meaning of life for the human species seems largely to depend
on concerns 2, 3 and 4. Without responses to these concerns the
human species does not seem to be able to function. Inevitably
the responses that develop are converted into "answers" that
purport to satisfy the countless questions arising from these
monumental concerns. If the answers are true or untrue does not
matter. What is crucial, what is absolutely essential, is that
the concerns be acknowledged and the responses formulated in
some kind of story-narrative, teaching or doctrine. Providing
the answers
has long been the calling of religion. Since the Enlightenment,
science has edged into the field. Today both science and religion
purport to respond in their own ways to these ultimate concerns.

The two mainstream religions that have most decisively shaped
historical events over the last 2000 years are Judaism and Christianity,
with
Islam assuming a comparable role after 600 CE. Currently the
world population of believers is divided between some billions
of Christians
and some billions of Muslims. These two huge factions are at
odds for various reasons, so there is talk of a "conflict of civilizations," but
more correctly it is a conflict of ideologies. And these ideologies,
we must note, share the same origin. Hence the designation, Abrahamic
religions.

Among the differences that divide Christians and Muslims perhaps
the most controversial one is the issue of Israel. This is passing
strange (here I ironise) because Judaism is the common root of
Islam and Christianity. All three religions share the same ideology
but in each it is doctrinally inflected in different ways. Although
the numbers of believers in Judaism is not great, Hebrew religion
remains the central issue in the world-encompassing drama we call
history. Since 9/11 Muslims and Christians are sharply divided
over how to view the political and ideological claims of Jewish
religion as reflected in the status of the State of Israel.

In the metahistorical view each of the three mainstream religions
can be defined by the ultimate concern it focalizes. Christianity
focalizes concern about the relation of Humanity to God. The central
figure in Christian religion is Jesus Christ, who is regarded as
the single and supreme intermediary between God and Humanity. Being
both human and divine, the Savior embodies and preserves the relation
of the human species to the Creator. Everything in Christian belief
centers on this ultimate concern, case 3.

Judaism focalizes concern on the relation of God to Nature, to
the natural world, for it is by the Deity’s transcendence
of the natural world that God is monotheistically defined in
the first place. If the presence of Deity is immanent in the
world
and actually merged with Nature, then there are Gods, not a single
God who stands outside nature. The definition of God as the world-transcending
creator, or, to say the same thing the other way around, of Nature
as the handiwork of a supernatural Deity, originates in Judaism
and remains its hallmark. Case 2 represents the ancient Hebraic
concern primarily for the relation of God to Nature, and secondarily
for the relation of Humanity to the God so defined. In Judaic
beliefs, case 3 is subsequent and consequent to case 2.

The great paradox of Hebrew religion is that it confers supreme
importance on concern for the relation of God to Nature and simultaneously
ruptures that relation. Or redefines it, if you prefer. The concept
of a Creator God consistent with Judaism is only possible to a
people who have denied the immanence of God in Nature. It makes
sense, then, that the sacred history of the Jews portrays them
in constant conflict with Pagan religion, for Paganism highlights
case 1, concern for the relation to Humanity to Nature. Pagan beliefs
arise from the experience of immanent Divinity, Gods animating
nature, and the experience comes through empathy with nature, intimate
participation. Through its relation to Nature the human species
finds its way to Deity, Divinity. In Paganism, case 3 is subsequent
and consequent to case 1. (It could be argued that case 2, concern
for the relation of God to Nature, did not exist in Paganism, for
God and Nature were regarded as the same.)

Islam is little understood, and perhaps badly understood as well,
outside the Muslim world, but it would perhaps help the situation
to recognize that Islam highlights concern for the relation of
Humanity to itself, case 4. Judaism and Christianity are revealed
religions that portray the human condition in supernatural terms,
but Islam is a revealed humanism, strange as this may sound. The
primary anxiety of Islam is repeatedly expressed in the Koran,
not so much in particular passages as in the overall tonality:
humanity has become so corrupted that humans no longer how to be
human. The Koran states the problem in terms of case 4, and then
proposes the solution: obediance to the dictates of Allah will
restore the benighted human species to behaviour consistent with
its essential dignity.

Islam means submission, pure and simple. Since 9/11 a good many
Westerners have taken this point on board, but something is missing
from this basic and literal definition. To what do Muslims submit?
To the will and wisdom of Allah, conveyed to them through the
Koran. Obviously this is the case, but this still does not explain
WHY
they must submit as they do. Consistent with concern about humanitys
relation to itself, believers in Islam must submit to superhuman
wisdom as the consequence of seeing how corrupted humanity is,
how incapable we humans are of treating each other like human beings.
They submit to Allah because their overwhelming concern for inhumanity
compels them to do so. Muslims feel a huge surge of superiority
in "submission" because they understand that their
beliefs address the concern of case 4 in ways the other two mainstream
religions do not. This explains why Muslims believe that Islam
is the great and insuperable force for social change on earth.
The strength of their belief is proportionate to the acuity of
their perception of the problem for which Islam uniquely provides
the answer. That is revealed humanism. Ironically, it is humanism
based on the perception of a corrupted humanity.

Finally, it could be argued that in the doctrine of the Fall
Christianity also addresses the problem of a corrupted humanity.
Yes, it does,
but it puts emphasis on case 3 not case 4. In Christian religion
humanity is corrupt because its relation to God has been broken
off or betrayed (due to the sin of the first parents, so the
story goes). In Islam humanity is regarded as corrupt due to
our relations
to each other. For Muslims the interactions that determine the
social rapport of the species are rotten, degenerate, and dysfunctional.
Looking at the condition of the "global community" post-2000
CE, it is difficult to deny the truth in this observation.

Example: in the Old Testament Jehovah both favors and tortures
the Chosen People. The ancient Hebrews believe they are God's privileged
ones, yet God continually subjects them to tribulations and ordeals.
In this example, the two conflicting elements of belief are closely
fused. The rationale developed around this contradiction states
that it is those most favored by God whom God tests most rigorously.
This rationale in turn engenders a deeply felt belief in the moral
superiority of the victim, a belief central to the Judaeo-Christian
ethic. This is perhaps the supreme example of conflicted belief.
When conflict arises out of a single belief it may be called conflictual
in the first degree.

Example: In science the belief that the human species has risen
to the summit of evolution conflicts with the belief that the same
species inhabits a speck-of-dust planet circulating around an average-sized
star floating in an infinite void. The first belief stresses the
importance of humans being evolutionary forerunners, but the second
belief reduces human life to insignificance. In this case two we
see the conflict of two different beliefs held within the same
framework - conflicted belief of the second degree. Nevertheless,
the resulting confusion is similar. If we accept the views of science
in general - in other words, if we believe that science presents
a true view of life - we will be conflicted by the contradictions
within science.

Example: racial scripts encoded with the belief in the superiority
of the white-skinner races (Aryan supremacy) compel the believers
to perpetrate harm on other races, if not eliminate them entirely.
Colonialism was driven by conflictual belief that produced the
genocide of countless millions of native people. More recently,
consumerism or globalization (considered by some to be merely
an extension and makeover of colonialism) compels those who believe
in the "free market economy" to inflict immense social and economic
harm on others.

conjectural belief. The
most banal and superficial form of belief, consisting of nothing
more than a supposition or conjecture: "I believe that Democrats
are gaining the upper hand." Contrast to core belief (three
entries below).

The word belief is used across a wide spectrum of instances. Needless
to say, metahistory is concerned with those expressions of belief
that run deep into human motivation and condition the sense of
meaning at the deepest levels of self-awareness. A conjectural
belief is not a true and permanent conviction but merely a passing
supposition.

We consent to believe what others believe. Here the primary appeal
of the belief may consist in the fact that many others hold it.
The mainstream religions of the world depend on consensus rather
than upon invididual deliberation and choice. To consent to believe
something is not to choose to believe it, rather the join company
with those who believe it. The primary accent of consensual belief
is inclusion in a group.

consensus-reality: term
proposed by Joseph Chilton Pearce for delusional sense of reality
engendered by consensus belief.

core belief The type
of belief of primary interest in metahistorical
analysis, by contrast to conjectural belief (three
entries above) and circumstantial belief.

A core belief is a conviction rooted or anchored in
one's deepest sense of reality, while a circumstantial belief
is the application of a core belief to a particular situation.
"I believe that I

corporate belief: belongs
to a program or agenda and serves the ends proposed in that program
or agenda.

Example: the belief that enticing people to buy things they neither
need nor want is necessary to a healthy economy and, as such,
a good thing for society. This belief has little meaning outside
the system of marketing strategies that it serves. It is incorporated
into the system it serves and without that system it has no raison
dêtre.

Another example: the belief that humans can communicate directly
with other species is inherent to some programs of Deep Ecology
and New Age nature mysticism. If this belief is held by someone
independently of their participation in a larger social agenda,
it is not corporate, but as long as it is shared by those who
enact such agenda, and seen to be a vital component of their
agenda,
it is a corporate belief.

Just think about it! What a tremendous prospect the Gnostics
have left us. We are involved in how the intelligence of the
earth is consciously integrated into the larger scheme of the
galaxy. We ought not to get too inflated about this fantastic
prospect, however. After many years of reflection, I am convinced
that Gaia-Sophia can achieve correction even if we fail in our
opportunity to participate in the process. If She cannot achieve
it with and through the human species, She will find another
way. This is my humble opinion, anyway. (I suspect that Gnostics
ardently debated this question. Some believed that human participation
was indispensible to Sophia's correction, while others believed
that our involvement was only accessory, and, lacking it, Sophia
could manage re-alignment to the Pleroma by other means. I leave
the issue open....)

According to the Gnostic origin myth found in Trim. Prot.,
Sophia's opportunity to achieve Her correction with some
kind of unique involvement by humanity is pre-disposed by
Her descent. The most we could say, perhaps, is that our co-evolutionary
role in Sophia's correction is consistent with Her story from
the outset, and if we miss the chance She presents to us, the
failure in our part of Her experiment will change that story.

covenant: biblical term for a belief
that binds humanity or a select group to the Creator God.

Covenants are traditionally stated in terms of a promise made by
God to a select group. The Old Testament records a series of covenants:
Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic. The Adamic covenant gives Adam and his
descendents dominion over the earth and all other species.

creationism The belief that the
world and all it contains are the handiwork of a supreme being
who is totally transcendent to it and who produces the world more
or less instantaneously, as a manifestation of cosmic will power.
This is the fundamentalist notion based on a literal
interpretation of the Bible. It is often contrasted with the Darwinian
scenario of evolution that represents the earth and all its creatures
as evolving slowly over long epochs of time without the need for
a designing hand or an extra-natural agency.

credibility Trust conferred
on the source of a belief, rather than in the substance of the
belief itself.

Credibility is highly problematic in metahistorical
discourse, because it places the issue of authority before the
question of veracity. This
shift distracts from clear and direct inquiry into the nature
of beliefs. Consider ths example:

In the The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, there is a passage
where the art historian Leigh Teabing states a known historical
fact: the divinity of Jesus was decided by vote at the first
Nicean Council of 325 CE. To be precise, it was decided to make
the divinity
of Jesus a strict doctrine, to be preached as absolute turth
and, if necessary, imposed by force. Another character, the heroine
Sophie Neveu, appears to be shocked that the divinity of Jesus
Christ was decided by a vote. This is a novelistic way to put
into
question the common assumption held by Christians, that Jesus
was recognized (by some people, at least) as the "Son of God" in
his own time and setting.

In response to this fictional ploy
(cleverly used here to present a little-known historical fact) Christianity
Today published an article by Ben Withingerington III, posted
05/21/04: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/006/7.26.phpl.

In the article, one of many generated by the ongoing debate
around the DVC, Witherington states flatly that : "The issue of canon
- what books constitute the final authority for Christians - is
no small matter." Here, right off the top, he appeals to the
credibility of the source (the canon), rather than to the veracity
of the beliefs to be considered. When credibility is invoked, the
implication is always the same: this is worth believing because
it has been deemed believable (by some "authority" or
other).

Witherington builds his argument by proposing that certain things
were believed about Jesus well before the Nicean Council of 325. "By
the time we get to the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and
Titus), there is a strong sense of what is and is not sound doctrine,
particularly in terms of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ." Coming
to the point, he asserts that Paul's letters, the main source of
the "Son of God" ideology, were "considered authoritative" already
in the end of the 1st Century CE. Thus he counters Dan's Brown
tactic of creating the impression that the divinity of Jesus
was a bogus attribution, merely decided by vote.

Witherington's
case
rests on the assumption that a belief considered authoritative
by earliest Christians ought to be viewed as true. This shows
how the issue of credibility often gets in the way of the critique
of beliefs.

For metahistorians, the point is not who believed that Jesus
was the Son of God , or when this belief was authoritatively
established,
but whether or not this belief in itself is sane or
insane. Of course, we look closely at the historical perspective.
We consider
how beliefs emerge, grow and dies over the centuries. But at
the end of the day, we live in the present and we ourselves
must determine
the veracity of a belief, here and now, regardless of the authority
or canonical weight attached to it.
Jesus is often considered to have the highest credibility of
anyone who ever lived, because he represents the ideal human
being, believed
by many to be a divine/human hybrid. On this conundrum, Alan
Watts writes with typical wit:

We are spiritually paralyzed by the fetish of Jesus.
Even to atheists he is the supremely good man, the exemplar and
moral authority with whom no one may agree. Whatever our opinions,
we must perforce wrangle the words of Jesus to agree with them.
Poor Jesus! If he had known how great an authority was to be
projected upon him, he would never have said a word. (Beyond
Theology, p. 108)

The authority attributed to Jesus is of course a great ploy,
an effective device for intimidation. To say anything against
Jesus
or what Jesus is believed to have said, is to risk looking very
bad, indeed. For centuries those who spoke against Jesus, or
even against anything that lesser authorities, those who declared
themselves "protectors
of the faith," said concerning Jesus and his message, were
violently suppressed, tortured and killed.

The use of violence
to enforce credibility is common to the conquering religions,
Christianity and Islam, although it must be said that historically
Islam has
a better record on tolerance. The formula for the perpetration
of righteous violence against those who resist religious authority
was laid down in the OT narratives. Although largely fictionalized,
theBiblical accounts of the ancient Hebrews committing genocide
and wholesale slaughter on various peoples of the ancient Middle
East provided the model for later atrocities to be committed
by Christians. Although Muslims proved to be more tolerance in
their
campaigns of conquest, the Koran is devoted by about in page
in four to threats and imprecations directed against "infidels," that
is, those who doare not credible, not able or willing to believe
what the sacred scriptures say.

Thanks to the Salvationist ideology driving American foreign
policy since the Reagen era, and following upon the global polarization
of Islam VS the West in the wake of 911, CNN and FOX now show
images
of crowds of Muslims brandishing Korans and pictures of clerics,
mullahs and ayatollahs. The fomenting rage of these crowds does
not feed on what they believe as much as on who. I the average
Muslin cannot explain his own religious beliefs beyond the rote
pronouncement of a few cliches - which is likely, and the same
can be ssaid for the average Christian, although less so for
orthodox Jews, who are fanatical about doctrine - but it hardly
matters.
The faces in the crown are empowerd by the face on the placard,
whose credibity carries the force of divine sanction. Credibility
is dangerous stuff.

culture Widely believed
to be the highest human achievement, although it may prove
to be a dangerous gain for the species, because cultural conditioning
can alienate us from our true co-evolutionary potential.

The case against culture has been eloquently made by Joseph
Chilton Pearce in his masterwork, The Biology of Transcendence (see Review).
Consider also the words of existential philosopher, Ortega
y Gasset:

Culture, the purest product of the live and the genuine,
since it comes out of the fact that man feels with an awful anguish
and a burning enthusiasm the relentless needs of which his life
is constructed, ends up by becoming a falsification of life.
Man's genuine self is swallowed up by his cultured, conventional,
social self. Every culture or every great culture ends in man's
socialization, and vice versa; socialization pulls man out of
his life of solitude, which is his real and authentic life.(Cited
in Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology, p. 390)

Sartre famously declared that "existentialism is a humanism." In
the passage cited here, Ortega y Gassett, speaking as an existentialist,
displays one of the primary flaws of humanism: omission of the
non-human natural setting of human existence, The setting of "real
and authentic life" for the human species is not a twilight
zone of personal solitude, an existential void, but the vast
non-human reaches of the habitat, the wilderness, including plenty
of room for moments of solitude!

Since the era of Sartre and the existentialist movement, ecopsychology
has arisen in the attempt to correct the humanist deviation,
but there is still a considerable way to go before even a small
segment of humanity recognizes the need to transcend culture
and modes of cultural identity.

cyberhype Proposed
term for the widespread exaggeration of claims about informational
technology and computer-based innovations.

The overblown pretences of cybernetics are familiar to us all,
and taken with straight-faced seriousness by many people, especially
those who are flogging the software. The main work of programmers
at Microsoft, Apple and Oracle now consists of inventing more
things for computers to do, so that the companies that employ
them can sell more software for computers to use.

Meanwhile, if we accept the hype, we bury ourselves
ever deeper in the illusion that life would
be
impossible
without computers.

cybernaut Current
slang for someone who navigates cyberspace (AKA the Internet);
i.e., uses a computer to gather information, and, perhaps, explore
the mind.
But whose
mind do we have in mind here?